DESCRIPTION (from the abstract): The Mechanisms of Eucaryotic Transcription conference will be an open international meeting devoted to the most recent advances in the rapidly evolving field of eucaryotic transcription. This meeting follows four highly successful meetings on the same topic held in Cold Spring Harbor in 1989, 1991, 1993 and 1995, and will be organized according to the same basic format. The meeting will be open with attendance limited only by the facilities available to a maximum of 425 participants. Oral presentations will consist of a combination of invited presentations and selected presentations from submitted abstracts. This ensures the participation of junior and senior leaders in the field and the presentation of the most exciting results emerging at the time of the meeting. The oral presentations will be complemented by poster presentations in three poster sessions, also selected from submitted abstracts. The areas covered include studies on: 1) the structure and function of the basal transcription apparatus, 2) the regulation of RNA polymerase activity, 3) activation mechanisms involving interactions between activators and the basal transcription machinery, 4) the structure and function of regulatory complexes, 5) chromatin structure and epigenetic regulatory mechanisms, and 6) repression mechanisms. A number of eucaryotic systems including mammals, Drosophila and yeast will be represented along with selected procaryotic topics to create a didactic conference.